The game was changed.
The NBA-ABA Amalgamation 50 Years Later
June 17, 2026
On June 17th, 1976, the National Basketball Association took in four American Basketball Association teams in a kind of merger. Somehow, NBA lawyers were able to get around the Sherman Antitrust Act and not being able to get Congress to sign off on a merger to take in the four ABA franchises in the New York City area, Indianapolis along with Denver and San Antonio. The ABA-NBA merger, absorption or expansion deal nearly killed off the New York Nets and the Indiana Pacers.
Nets owner Roy Boe’s financial problems threatened to sink not only his basketball franchise but his National Hockey League New York Islanders business. In addition to paying a $3.2 million in fees to join the NBA. Boe had to give the NBA’s Knicks a 10-year annual $480,000 fee for “invading” the New York territory. The financially strapped Boe sold Julius Erving’s contract to the Philadelphia 76ers to make ends meet. Boe would move the Nets to New Jersey after the 1976-77 season and sold the Nets in 1978 to a group of New Jersey businessmen. Boe also lost control of the Islanders in 1978. The Indiana Pacers franchise also hit financial rough times following the merger. The franchise needed a $100,000 cash infusion to make it through the first NBA season and then held a telethon on the Fourth of July, 1977 to sell season tickets for year two. Had the team not sold 8,000 season tickets by July 31st, 1977, the franchise was going to be sold to the highest bidder. The telethon worked as the team hit the 8,000 season tickets sold mark. The Pacers business stayed in Indianapolis but just barely. The money seemed large in 1976 and no one ever thought they would see franchises worth billions of dollars. Now it takes at least a few billion dollars to get any major league team.
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